On 4th July, over a thousands people gathered in Parliament Square to protest the government's alleged abandonment of reforms to the Gender Recognition Act.The British government is reportedly planning to scrap reforms to the Act and will instead introduce a series of policies to “protect” single-sexx spaces. In this video, Isabelle, a transgender activist, addresses the crowd and calls on the government to reconsider the alleged plans, saying it would be a "step backwards".

Full Transcript (Isabelle Addresses the Crowd):

I want to talk specifically about rights. As we all know, human rights are not transcendental nor inviolable. They are the universal standards of treatment that we as a society deem to be essential and baseline for a moral and fair society. As such, over the past 200 years, we have pushed the envelope further and further. When we righted one wrong, we built upon it, as a foundation to right the next. This is how we've come to have so many civil liberties, layered, one on top another. Slavery was abolished in 1833. Working class men were granted the vote after World War I, which led to women being granted the same soon after. In 1967 gay sexx was legalised. And in 2004, the last legal difference between gay sexx and heterosexual sexx was removed. The government equalities office under Elizabeth Truss, plans to undo one of these wins. They will peel off the outer layer, the most recent layer, and set us back a step. What I ask of the proponents of this proposal is this. What do you think might happen when you set a precedent for removing rights? The layer beneath this is gay rights. The next is women's rights. And POC rights beneath that. If we let them peel away the outer layer, these layers become the outer, and they will be standing, knife at the ready, to keep on peeling, under the guise of protecting others' rights. Just for those people over there in that big building, I'd like to point out something that they might not have noticed, but they probably have - they're not great people - they are planning on potentially stopping people from using the bathroom. Now, there are many people who are going to decide that this isn't tenable. They're not going to go outside. If they're not going to go outside they're not going to have a job. And one of the pre-requisites for getting the surgery on the NHS is to be in full time employment. So if you can't get a job, then you can't get the surgery. And if you can't get the surgery, you can't get a job. When are they going to figure this out? I'm sorry I've not been great at eliciting responses, but... (applause).